What kind of cucumbers do you recommend?

[ducks4you]

As you know I have had limited success growing cucumbers VERY late, both in 2022 and 2023. I had to put my stash in the fridge bc one of them starting rotting!!
Won't get to my pickles until Monday...
I realized that EVERYBODY, inCLUDING DH loves fresh cucumbers, but the picklers have to be picked somewhat small before they are simply bitter horse food.
I have pickler seeds, but I need ones that grow bigger.
I would like advice.

What kind of cucumbers would you suggest that I grow next year as an additional crop?
ALSO, I think I have planted them too close together. I have allowed 1/2 of them to sprawl on the ground.
I would like growing advice, too.
I am about to finish my seed buying, before the european and middle eastern wars hit our shores and you can't find stuff...

 

[Alasgun]

Grown in a protected environment (greenhouse) Sweet Success is hard to beat. We’ve grown them yearly for about five years now and really like the flavor and production.
Oh yea; we pickle them too, as fermented refrigerator pickles.
This dozen or so were from the day I shut the greenhouse down.
A while back I started some in the house and should have new cukes before these are gone!

 

[digitS']

There are 3 varieties of cukes that I like to have in my sprawl each year. Keep in mind that the big veggie garden has a stone mulch all-by-itself each year after the sprinklers run on it about 3 times.

I like Beit Alfa cucumbers and Munchers have grown well. It is a favorite.

DW likes Lemon cucumbers and so do I . Use them before they look like a lemon! That is, unless you like the seeds. They tend to run late, most seasons.

There are lots of American slicers. Some are exactly like the ones at the soopermarket. I like Talladega and have been surprised how well they do year after year with that southern name. They are quite similar to "Japanese " cucumbers but grow without the bother of those long cukes.

Right at the moment, I'm eating a White Wonder with lunch. They are okay and DW likes them and cut this one up. I'm not sure how there were a few this week. The Munchers, I know why they are still around. Their second sowing went in with some cilantro seed after the first planting of sweetcorn was winding down to take advantage of the shade and, after the stalks were cut, the space .

Steve

 

[flowerbug]

we've just been picking up the ones from the greenhouse which say "for pickles" or "for pickling" and there isn't a variety name on them. they don't get long but they will get four to six inches wide if not picked and left to go. i don't think bitter has been an issue, but sometimes certain vines seem to have that trait and we just pull those vines. i'm also not phased by bitter too much so perhaps what i can tolerate is horrible to you. eat grapefruit and saurkraut and drink dark beer ya? i no longer drink dark beer - been a long time...

so next time i see the greehouse guy i'll try to remember to ask him what variety that it is that they put out and see if he knows.

 

[R2elk]

For short seasons, Marketmore 97 is really good. I have no problem getting 10" cucumbers from them. Really good eating fresh and make good pickles too. I do slices for Hot Sweet pickles and quarters for Hot Dill pickles.

I formed a rectangle with woven wire fence to give them something to climb.

 

[FrannyNZooey]

For the last three or four years I've grown Summer Dance cakes from Territorial Seeds. They have not failed me yet. Thin skinned, small seed, sweet, crisp, trellis well, and productive. I will always grow at least a couple vines of these. I've been doing three vines in a four foot bed, and trellis them up diagonal bamboo that's laid against a 7 foot metal trellis. Image below is Summer Dance from July 2021. Sorry that it's upside down, I rotated it before upload and still no luck.

This year I planted an additional variety, also from Territorial: "Mini Munch". In a blind taste test, DH preferred this one. However, it didn't trellis too well and I got annoyed with it since they we're crowding out my basil. After I cut them out SD started doing much better, so it could have been a space thing. Plus those on the ground had little bite marks from night critters. It also may have been my fault because I did 4 vines in a four foot bed, so maybe that was too much. Since DH liked flavor of Mini Munch, I may try again next year, but give it its own bed.

I did read something about prunning cucumber vines so that they don't go wild. I've only done that one year, but I do think it helps. Basically you keep the main leader, but pinch off any off-shoots. I remember having to stay on it daily.

 

[Pulsegleaner]

Assuming you don't need them to be GREEN, my parents LOVED the Brown Russians I grew two years ago.

 

[Branching Out]

We have also had good results with Sweet Success and Summer Dance cucumbers. For long slicers they are each excellent. This year Homemade Pickles cukes have been great, and they continue to pump out buckets of small cucumbers for pickling; they are definitely worth growing. In September I picked 3 gallons from 7 plants, which was almost too much of a good thing. My late season planting was a hybrid called Eureka pickling cucumbers, and they are doing very well too. What I like about Eureka is that you can harvest them very young as gherkins, or as pickling cukes, or you can leave them on the vine a bit longer and just peel and eat them. Very versatile variety with lots of options. At $6 a jar for store bought pickles it is very worthwhile to grow 6-7plants and just make your own refrigerator pickles.

No matter which variety you grow, cucumbers are in my opinion the ultimate succession planting crop. If you can manage several sowings a few weeks apart there will be a steady supply of delicious cukes to harvest for months and months.

 

[flowerbug]

years ago when we were growing more cucumbers we put in a few of the Burpee cucumber plants, which lasted all summer and had many cucumbers that often got rather huge. i forgot about them... it's been six or more years since we grew those...

 

[Zeedman]

Although I grow several Asian cucumbers in rotation for seed, my family's and my favorite is "WI 5207", a variety bred in my home state. It is a cross between Asian burpless cukes & American slicers. It is low acid, bitter free, and has a delicious flavor. When my DW tasted it, she made me grow it every year. It climbs strongly, is wilt resistant, and bears heavily. With 7 plants, it was a challenge to give them away fast enough to keep up. Finally picked the last ones last week. I didn't take any photos this year, but these are from 2022. I think they got photo-bombed by @digitS' .

Cucumber "WI 5207" 2022

This year I also grew "Nippon Sanjaku Kiuri" (a Japanese variety) to replenish seed. 4 plants for seed, plus another 4 plants for eating & as a pollen barrier to protect the seed row. A strong climber with long, very narrow cukes about 1-1.5" wide. Bitter free, burpless, and highly productive. Those let go for seed form dense clusters of bright yellow snake-like fruits when ripe, which is actually what first caught my attention when I saw them on SSE's Heritage Farm. The 16 ripe cucumbers have been curing in my patio, I'll be extracting & fermenting their seeds tomorrow. These REALLY need to be trellised for the best shape... but they are so long, they often reach the ground anyway.

Cucumber "Nippon Sanjaku Kiuri" 2023.